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Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law

October 3, 2015

Pre-emption: How and Why Rail Companies Are Above The Law

CSX is one of the major rail companies that is profiting from the oil-by-rail boom led by North Dakota’s Bakken crude oil. On September 28th, a day that is apparently national “good neighbor day,” CSX broadcast the following message on Twitter.

good neighbor tweet

Which is a nice message. But CSX and the rest of the rail industry can turn into a horrible neighbor for many communities across the country. Why? Because as rail companies they are essentially above the law due to a legal doctrine known as “pre-emption.”

Pre-emption means that rail companies are not subject to any local or state laws. So if they want to build a new propane transloading facility near a school or neighborhood, they can. And CSX and others in the industry do.

A new article by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting (NECIR) details how pre-emption has allowed for the construction of oil and gas transloading facilities on rail company property with little to no oversight in communities like Grafton, Massachusetts.

In Grafton, the owner of a small railroad constructed what is now the largest rail propane facility in the state. No construction permits were acquired. No environmental assessments completed. And as NECIR reports, the rail company’s neighbors weren’t very happy about any of this.

Residents were dumbfounded: The location was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, less than 2,000 feet from an elementary school and atop the town’s water supply.

That is the reality of pre-emption. As we’ve reported on DeSmog since oil trains started derailing and exploding, pre-emption applies to all areas of rail operations.

Rail companies believe they are not subject to “right to know” laws regarding the transportation of dangerous materials through communities.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IN NEW VIDEO, CONGRESSMAN EXPLAINS WHY HIS FELLOW LAWMAKERS COULDN’T BE TRUSTED WITH NSA OVERSIGHT

April 4, 2015

IN NEW VIDEO, CONGRESSMAN EXPLAINS WHY HIS FELLOW LAWMAKERS COULDN’T BE TRUSTED WITH NSA OVERSIGHT

Congressmen who asked about oversight of NSA mass surveillance and domestic spying in 2013 could have “compromise[d] security” and were denied the records they sought because of concerns they lacked formal government security clearance, a former member of the House Intelligence Committee says in a newly-released video.

The footage, from an August 29, 2013 town hall meeting, sheds new light on why lawmakers were denied key rulings and reports from the secret courts overseeing the National Security Agency — even as the Obama administration and intelligence officials claimed that all NSA programs were subject to strict congressional oversight and therefore could be held accountable.

In the video, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., then a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, discusses why Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., and Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., should not and did not receive information they sought from the committee. The committee had previously declined to explain why the information was withheld, going so far as to tell Grayson that even its discussion of his request was classified. Because the committee, like its Senate counterpart, tends to be particularly sympathetic to the intelligence community, getting information to non-committee-members like Grayson and Griffith is potentially crucial to reforming U.S. spy agencies. And in late 2013, following revelations of mass surveillance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, there were any number of reform bills pending.

At the time, President Obama defended bulk collection of telephone metadata, claiming in a press conference that “these programs are subject to congressional oversight and congressional reauthorization and congressional debate. And if there are Members of Congress who feel differently, then they should speak up.”

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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